The Foot is In The Other Shoe, Now....

Banks Bid For Your Money !

Great little piece from Springwise on a company that allows you to post online how much money you want to save, and find out what the different rates of return would be like with different providers. But you don't have accept the offers, you can leave it there, and have the banks bid on your money. Ah, that sound nice. If only we all thought about money that "rationally".

Language Constructs Reality?

I've always been interested in the way that people say things. By phrasing it one way, everybody co-operates, and plays nice. Same thing phrased another way, hackles are raised, categorical responses loaded, and your diner party derailed. Ribbonfarm has a beautiful post on how:

Your metaphors, not your financial or mathematical acumen, determine the outcome of your dealings with money

For many in the corporate life 80% of the money we make flows through our accounts automatically, unremarkably, unnoticed. The last 20% we do notice, but we notice it in relation to a notional "high water mark" of about $5,000. In normal consumption, the most we spend would be around this amount (we consider it a lot of money!). Yet, say changing our credit card to another provider, "only" saves us $5/month, the price of Cappuccino, and hey that's hardly worth talking about. Interestingly what has happened is that you have categorised the saving and made an object comparison (coffee, cinema, diner out). 

For marketers this is a very handy chart. People don't always make rational choices. The "reward" may be very large, but the probability of getting it very low, yet we still play the lotto. 10 Euro today is inexplicably more attractive than 15 Euro next week.

Entrepreneurs think of money as a goal (Money As Gaol Metaphor). How much money would you need to free from your job for one year in order to build your new freelance business?

Venkatesh has 13 Money Metaphors That are well worth checking out.

Insurance Company Advise You On Road Conditions

Helping you to stay off the road during icy conditions, a Dutch insurance company will text you a warning. Ok. But not really cutting edge is it, even from a customer experience standpoint. By extending the capability you could "confirm" that there are indeed difficult driving conditions in your location (citizen journalism), or share specifics (hyper-local), perhaps through Twitter, or re-publish this warning to others or online. A phone call that gave you the warning with the option of connecting to a pre-approved, and free taxi service would be an amazing service option. Just state your location, and we will pick you up. Now that's service.

What's with the Picture? That financial cataclysm that surrounds us now must feel a little surreal, like our world is out of control. Perhaps this is a learned response set.